[Newly Updated] The Betrayed Messiah – The Truth Behind Lag Ba'Omer?

Aish.com has an article by Rabbi Pinchas Stopler on the mystery of Lag Ba'Omer.

As Rabbi Stopler notes, Lag Ba'Omer is really Yom Yerushalyim, the anniversary of the day Bar Kokhba's army captured Jerusalem. I have also heard – but cannot source – that Lag BaOmer is the day the revolt began. Rabbi Stopler is careful to label Bar Kokhba a "failed messiah" rather than a false one.

But Rabbi Stopler raises a question that he leaves unsatisfactorily answered: Why do we mourn 49 days for the deaths of Rabbi Akiva's disciples (remember, Lag Ba'Omer is the day that the mysterious "plague" that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva's followers stopped), but only one day for the destruction of the Temple and the end of the Second Commonwealth?

Rabbi Akiva was Bar Kokhba's chief backer. He sold Bar Kokhba's mission to the rabbis and to the masses. He did so by declaring Bar Kokhba the long-awaited messiah.

At first the revolt succeeded. Bar Kokhba's forces decimated the Romans and took Jerusalem. He began to build (and some say, completed building) the Third Temple. But years into the revolt the Romans began to regain the upper hand. It would appear that it is at this crucial point that Rabbi Akiva's disciples erred. But what was that error?

Rabbi Elazar, accused of betraying Betar to the Romans, was executed by Bar Kokhba against the will of Rabbi Akiva. As Rabbi Stopler notes, the common explanation among today's Orthodox scholars is that it was the Jewish-Christians, not Rabbi Elazar, who betrayed Betar and caused the death of more than 500,000 Jews.

But is that really so? While rabbinic elites of the time certainly persecuted the early Christians, there is no evidence that Bar Kochba or the Jewish masses did so, even during the years Bar Kochba reigned. There also are no known contemporaneous sources that implicate the Christians, and Judaism has no historical memory of a Christian betrayal of Betar. It would also appear that Christians served in Bar Kochba's army, and that their community had much to lose from a Roman victory.

So who really betrayed Betar?

While we cannot answer that question with absolute certainty, it would seem that Rabbi Elazar – or another of Rabbi Akiva's student-colleagues – actually did.

When Rabbi Elazar was executed by Bar Kochba – who was, after all both king and the declared redeemer, and was well within his rights to execute anyone – Rabbi Akiva withdrew support for the revolt.

Rabbi Akiva seems to have envisioned a theocracy where the king would be a military leader and figurehead subservient to the rabbis. If so, Rabbi Akiva either had a radically different understanding of the messiah than our extant Jewish tradition or his messianic crowning of Bar Kochba was a ploy to rally the masses behind the revolt.

As Rabbi Stopler points out, we must understand that the Talmud presents the story of Rabbi Akiva's students in veiled language, in part due to the political climate of that day. Open endorsement of the revolt was too dangerous, even more than 100 years later.

So, what really happened? Perhaps this:

After its initial successes, Bar Kokhba's revolt began to fail. As it did, dissent became rife in the rabbinic elite. As dissent widened, Rabbi Akiva's position as the power behind Bar Kokhba's throne diminished. Further, Bar Kokhba ruled as a king – not as Rabbi Akiva's puppet. In imitation of the deal Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakai struck with the Romans almost 70 years earlier, some of the rabbis sought to save themselves from the impending destruction and deal with the "Bar Kokhba problem" at the same time. They attempted to strike a deal with the Romans – allow us to escape to freedom and Bar Kokhba is yours.

But Bar Kokhba uncovered the plot – not in time to save Betar but in time to punish at least one of the plot's ringleaders.

Lag Ba'Omer is therefore a celebration of military victory, the holiday Jews refused to forget even after the revolt failed.

The mourning practices of Sefirat HaOmer that surround Lag Ba'Omer commemorate the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews who died fighting under the banner of a false messianic idea propagated by Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues for political purposes. The mourning period is suspended only for Lag BaOmer – which is both the anniversary of day the revolt began and the anniversary of the day Jerusalem was liberated by Bar Kokhba – the day those Jews fought so hard to achieve, and continues until it is lifted by the Biblical holiday of Shavuot.

Shiva, the period of mourning observed on the death (God forbid) of a near relative is 7 days long. It may then follow that the mourning period for an entire nation is 49 days long, based on the Sabbatical cycle which is 7 years long and exists for seven cycles (49 years) with the 50th year being the Jubilee, a national holiday year.

(This may also be the meaning of the Talmudic story regarding Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who tells his student in a dream not to fast or mourn on the anniversary of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's death even though the custom was to fast and mourn on a yartzeit. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai died on Lag Ba'Omer - Yom Yerushalyim.)

Why did the 'plague' that killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva's students 'stop' on Lag BaOmer? To show that support for the revolt was not the cause of their deaths: Askara – the plague – was. 

Askara, croup in English, is a viral, primarily early childhood disease and is rarely fatal. Could those 24,000 disciples have died from croup? And, if so, why did no others die with them?

I propose that askara (spelled with a samekh) should be read as "azkara" spelled with a zayin. (The samekh and zayin are interchangable letters).

If this is done the plague becomes clear. Azkara means a formal, ritualized act of remembering an event. It is most often used to denote memorial ceremonies held in rememberence of tragedies.

Rabbi Akiva's disciples perished because they did not remember (azkara) the lessons of the destruction of the Second Temple and in order that their deaths serve as an azkara for all time.

Those rabbinic leaders fostered division between themselves and between themselves and the common Jews.

When Bar Kokhba's early victories reversed and the revolt began to falter, Rabbi Akiva and his followers gave up on the revolt they had so stongly promoted and tried to save their own skins at the expense of the common Jews and Bar Kokhba's army. They followed the example of Yokhanan Ben Zakai, who asked the Romans to save Yavne and its sages, but did not ask the Romans to spare the common Jews, tens of thousands of whom were consequently slaughtered by the Romans.

The disciples tried to strike a similar deal with the Romans – allow us to escape to freedom and Bar Kokhba and the common Jews are yours.

Bar Kokhba's discovery of the plot was too late to save Betar or the more than 500,000 Jews who perished there.

Without interference, Bar Kokhba may have survived to fight another day. He was not a false messiah, nor was he a failed one.

Bar Kokhba was a betrayed messiah. That is the true lesson of Lag Ba'omer.

Comments

Do you have any real evidence for your theory or is this just your idle speculation? I can choose to believe Bar Kochba failed because he hated cheese.

And had this failed messiah survived - whose to say it would have impacted Judaism for the good. The man was a catalyst to the destruction of Judean Jewry, it would be a very contentious concept to submit the actions he actually did were positive for Judaism.

By all biblical indications, sefirah was originally a HAPPY time period. So was it chosen to memorialize the failed redemption only because of this 49 = 7 x 7 coincidence with sitting shiva?
The theory on Lag Ba'omer's really interesting, I'm going to look more into it. But how does a biblically-mandated period of counting up to Shavuot turn into a rabbinic mourning period? Especially regarding the tradition that Lag Ba'omer wasn't a "pause" in the "plague", but its end?

[A Shud di Tzait]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I respect your (Shmaya's) intellectual capacity, as well as, or maybe secondary to, your intolerance of bullshit. When it comes to others only, evidently.

Were you to harness your intellect and tenacity to honest journalism, writing or similar pursuits, I would imagine you would meet with stellar success. Why to you do yourself the injustice of engaging in idle, meaningless, baseless conjecture??

The only purpose of this article seems to be to promote a materialistic, self-centered, political perspective on the motives of the Sages of Israel as opposed to the more positive one held by Jews throughout the ages. Although I disagree as to the worthiness of the goal, that itself does not invalidate it. But to make statements such as these prefaced by the words "Perhaps this:"??? What are you writing? Imaginative Historical Fiction??? Where is the self respect?

It hurts your reputation and credibility, at least in my eyes, and I imagine the same holds true for anyone who holds truth in any regard, but worse it develops into a habit, a laziness on the part of the mind. In the place of your intolerance for bullshit, you are cultivating the very self serving logical calisthenics you so vigorously mock.

I hope you take this in the spirit in which it was written, as a wakeup call to someone whose potential I respect, and do not take this as a personal slight. That is not my intention at all.

[Shmarya]

The Talmud and midrashim do this all the time.

[Neo-Conservaguy]

"What are you writing? Imaginative Historical Fiction???"

Leave that to the rabbis - they've done it best for thousands of years. Leave Torah to the rabbis; for real history, as best we can know it, turn to modern scholars in that field of study.

The revolt was doomed to fail from day one; no nation on earth could stand against Rome's military might in the long run. Even though Bar Kokhba, by many accounts, was a great warrior and military leader, he could not hope to prevail against the massive numerical superiority of the Roman armies. The first victories in battle went to the Jews; then it was time for Rome to get serious and call in hundreds of thousands of battle-tested troops to destroy the rebellion - and perhaps, the Jewish people entirely.

The Jews fought hard and well. The Roman losses at Betar were so bad that the report of the battle sent back to Rome omitted a customary greeting to the effect, "I hope this letter finds you well; we are well". They were not well - many, many thousands on both sides had died - but the Romans had those numbers to lose, and the Jews did not, and Bar Kokhba was dead.

At the end of the war after the Romans were finished extracting revenge on the people and the cities, one modern estimate gives the number of Jews still alive at around 600,000; that's how close they were to being completely eradicated from the Earth.

In light of this historical understanding, I find it hard to see R. Akiva in the same light as those who learn their history from their religious leaders.

[A Shud di Tzait]

They say that atheists are as dogmatic in their disbelief as religious people in their belief. I find a humorous paralel in your comments, Neo. What you said about the chances of success is your take on it, close to 2000 years later! What are your sources of imformation and how accurate are they? What do you know of the political and martial climate of those times? And what background gives your opinion on matters of war any weight? Particularly a war on whose details and nuances you have not been briefed?

Second-guessing Rabbi Akiva's judgement aside, although Rabbi Akiva's saintliness may be brought into question, on account of it being a judgement, as opposed to a clearly measurable fact, I find it preposterous that you are sitting in judgement of his wisdom.

You are basically basing your opinion of the man on the fact that you find his support of the revolt foolish. You, who, with all due respect, have not been considered wise enough to have a nation accept you as their teacher. You, who is sitting at a computer, presumably far from the realities of war and oppression, 2000 years later, presume to judge a situation about which you have little concrete knowledge. You presume to judge the motives of a decision that you can have no idea about.

But then again, we are all making dogmatic fools of ourselves, are we not? None of this changes the fact that Shmaya is admittedly fabricating this whole scenario. To defend that view brings to mind a quote I recently saw: Whose folly is greater, The fool, or he who follows his lead?

From a man who recently insisted on the validity of peer reviewed science when discussing diets, and accepted nothing less, Historical Fiction comes as a bit of a inconsistency, does it not?

Folks, a little intellectual honesty? Please?

[Neo-Conservaguy]

"Folks, a little intellectual honesty? Please?"

What of it have you offered? Surely you don't mistake your blanket criticism of modern historic scholarship and a poor attempt at personal jabs as intellectual honesty? Come on - if you are going to make the claim that R. Akiva was correct to support the Zealots and encourage Bar Kokhba to provoke a war that could not be won, then make the claim and show some supporting information. I'm most curious to see how anyone can rationally believe provoking the Romans would turn out well for the Jews.

Let me guess: you really believe that R. Akiva's students were dying of a "spiritual plague," as opposed to being slaughtered in combat and after the war by Roman soldiers?

[Shmarya]

"From a man who recently insisted on the validity of peer reviewed science when discussing diets, and accepted nothing less, Historical Fiction comes as a bit of a inconsistency, does it not?"

You confuse, intentionally it would seem, historical fiction with historical theory.

I proposed an answer to a difficult question, attempting to base my answer on the facts as reported by Rabbi Stopler.

I "fabricated" nothing. I clearly explained my position and what I base it on.

You could learn much from that process.

[A Shud di Tzait]

@ Neo: I must admit having little expertise in Roman history. I was not arguing for or against joining the revolt. My point was simply that for you to sit in judgement over a decisions made by a sage accepted by a nation as their wisest man in a war which happened 2000 years before your birth, under circumstances you can do little more than guess at, is preposterous.

@ Shmarya: Historical theory is where one uses existing facts and attempts to link them in a way which explains a difficulty. The majority is established historical event and conjecture is confined to the minority, used to logically connect events.

Historical Fiction is where, when confronted with inconsistancy or difficulty, one creates totally new events or facts, such as

"In imitation of the deal Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakai struck with the Romans almost 70 years earlier, some of the rabbis sought to save themselves from the impending destruction and deal with the "Bar Kokhba problem" at the same time. They attempted to strike a deal with the Romans – allow us to escape to freedom and Bar Kokhba is yours"

for which none of the existing facts offer support. (Incidentally, there was no deal in the case of R' Yochanan Ben Zakai, merely a newly appointed Caeser granting a request to the man who brought him the news first - there was no trade off, no betrayel of the city or Temple Mount.)

To suggest that the Rabbinic elite betrayed thousands of people to ensure personal escape and survival strikes me as a bit of a stretch for Historical Theory, it would need to be supported or suggested by something concrete. Hence, the categorizing of it as Historical Fiction.

The only thing which you could possibly hang this theory on is the execution of R' Elazar, whose guilt was never established through an investigation or trial, and who claimed innocence. A mighty thin peg to hang such a theory on.

You seem to feel I am out to get you. Believe it or not, there is no "intentional" confusion here.

" The man was a catalyst to the destruction of Judean Jewry, it would be a very contentious concept to submit the actions he actually did were positive for Judaism."
by -?-
catalysts to destruction ? yeah , sure - it seems that each failed , fraudulent or betrayed Messiah so far nips / destroys something of our faith .
lucky we are still around .
to the credit of this one however , a klezmer he was not ! he actually went to war rather than clapping hands from the comfort of his Brooklyn -Toubovo- prayer hall , !

[Harboyne]

" The man was a catalyst to the destruction of Judean Jewry, it would be a very contentious concept to submit the actions he actually did were positive for Judaism."
by -?-
catalysts to destruction ? yeah , sure - it seems that each failed , fraudulent or betrayed Messiah so far nips / destroys something of our faith .
lucky we are still around .
to the credit of this one however , a klezmer he was not ! he actually went to war rather than clapping hands from the comfort of his Brooklyn -Toubovo- prayer hall , !

[rebeljew]

Commenters, previously myself included,have missed something subtle here.
Shmarye, would you perhaps be alluding to your take on more recent events, say circa WWII.

[Larry]

" The only purpose of this article seems to be to promote a materialistic, self-centered, political perspective on the motives of the Sages of Israel as opposed to the more positive one held by Jews throughout the ages."

Sure you shouldn't Shmarya -not you not Aish- , such speculation , is the domain of mechashvei kitzin only ! And those as we know nofcha nishmosson !

"...it develops into a habit, a laziness on the part of the mind. ....serving logical calisthenics you so vigorously mock."

Can't be , unless it comes from CH , then it's OK !

" In light of this historical understanding, I find it hard to see R. Akiva in the same light as those who learn their history from their religious leaders. "

Bekhol Dor vaDor , we have idiots from our midst out to engage in adventures to eradicate us . See today's crowds milling in Gush Katif to oppose Israel's military .

"What are your sources of imformation and how accurate are they? What do you know of the political and martial climate of those times? And what background gives your opinion on matters of war any weight? Particularly a war on whose details and nuances you have not been briefed?"

Neo-Con ! don't you know ? Only Kehot is privy to all that military information !

" ....although Rabbi Akiva's saintliness may be brought into question, on account of it being a judgement, as opposed to a clearly measurable fact, I find it preposterous that you are sitting in judgement of his wisdom..... "

Funny it is mentioned here : R' Akiva's saintliness . As we learned from some , R' Akiva's dedication and messirus nefesh pales in comparison to that of the Rayatz .

".....You, who, with all due respect, have not been considered wise enough to have a nation accept you as their teacher. You, who is sitting at a computer, presumably far from the realities of war and oppression, 2000 years later, presume to judge a situation about which you have little concrete knowledge. You presume to judge the motives of a decision that you can have no idea about......"

The only people allowed such speculation , are those pretending to look thru the prism of Tanya .

" Whose folly is greater, The fool, or he who follows his lead?"

Well to be fair, the greatest fool , is that who keeps writing and writing , without wanting to notice that this posting originates verbatim @ aish .

"Folks, a little intellectual honesty? Please?"

Hopefully , you and your peers @ CH will get to heed your own adv !

" Let me guess: you really believe that R. Akiva's students were dying of a "spiritual plague,"

Neo- Con - actually , I think that the only thing he believes in , is Tora from CH . Everything else , according to der zaitung is wrong .

" @ Neo: ....is preposterous."

Sure , eveything not sanctioned @ CH is preposterous .

[A Shud di Tzait]

Interesting how youcan say so much and in reality say so little. After sifting through that comment, all I found were snide digs at Chabad, and even there you don't say much, and none of it has any logic to it. Interesting how everyone here assumes I am Chabad, just because I fail to see the world as they do...

Oh, and by the way, if you would actually read the article at Aish, Sharya adds quite a leap of logic all his own, which is what I was discussing. Aish says nothing really original in that article that gave me reason to comment.

[rebeljew]

Shud di tzeit
Take a look at some of Shmarya's earlier posts about the Rigg account of the rescue of the Rayatz. Then you may understand where he was going with this leap of logic.

Actually, the aish article concludes that it was because they failed to bring Moshiach that the period of Sefira became a mourning period. It was very Chabad sounding for Aish.

[mslatfatf]

What is your source that samekh and zayin are interchangeable?

[Shmarya]

It's a standard method of interpretation and gematria. Hazal do this frequently in midrash, for example.